Microsoft lines up with the good guys on identity tech

Even now the Microsoft-using UK government gateway service wants to offer single sign-on for all public services, and to extend this to private sector partners – a gargantuan authentication service which would surely become the mother of all 'computers that say no'.

People who think this way remain, as Dr Brands puts it, "in a state of sin".

Whitehall needs to understand why Microsoft had to move on from Hailstorm. It has to demand, on all our behalves, that Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Google and all our service providers design and deliver systems which protect our privacy and in doing so maintain our collective security. This also reduces the vulnerability to data losses and simplifies obligations under data protection law. Minimal disclosure means we can transact safely with organisations that hold far less personal data.

Would we be able to put this persuasively to Jacqui Smith? Not in an elevator pitch. Probably not in a one-hour meeting. But she's a very smart woman. If we who read and write for The Reg can understand it then I'm sure she and her colleagues can. Those who advised her and predecessors need to consider that they may have been mistaken. They've undervalued the security benefits of privacy.

We all have a very long way to go before we transact and interoperate in a secure online space in a world that conforms to Cameron's seven laws and works in keeping with Dr Brands' enlightened vision. But ensuring a secure future for U-Prove and the mass rollout of U-Prove based products and wide availability across different platforms is a huge step forward.

Far bigger news, as we say, than an ID System rollout plan. ®

William Heath moderates the Ideal Government blog, and serves on the Open Rights Group board and the FIPR Advisory Council. He founded and chaired the government IT research group Kable, now part of The Guardian. A Fellow of the Young Foundation, he is now starting a new venture to help business adapt faster and better to the arrival of customer-centric Vendor Relationship Management.